18^th Florida Death Row Prisoner Set for Execution in 2025 Waives Appeals, Fifth Volunteer of 2025

Mark Geralds has waived all pend­ing and future legal pro­ceed­ings in his case and is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed by Florida offi­cials on December 9, 2025. Mr. Geralds elect­ed to for­go his appeals just days after Governor Ron DeSantis signed his death war­rant, join­ing a doc­u­ment­ed group of death row pris­on­ers who have also decid­ed not to try and pre­vent their executions.

Mr. Geralds ​“indi­cat­ed that his wish was to for­go all war­rant pro­ceed­ings and allow the exe­cu­tion to pro­ceed,” wrote Bay County Circuit Court Judge Timothy Register in his order grant­i­ng Mr. Geralds’ request to waive appeals. Judge Register found Mr. Geralds com­pe­tent to make this deci­sion and con­firmed it was made ​“freely and vol­un­tar­i­ly.” If car­ried out, Mr. Geralds’ exe­cu­tion would mark Florida’s 18^th exe­cu­tion of 2025, a total far exceed­ing the state’s pri­or record of eight exe­cu­tions in one year. Mr. Geralds would also become the 171^st exe­cu­tion vol­un­teer since exe­cu­tions resumed in 1977, and the fifth vol­un­teer of 2025. 

Since 1977, exe­cu­tion vol­un­teers have rep­re­sent­ed approx­i­mate­ly 10% of all mod­ern exe­cu­tions. There were four oth­er vol­un­teers in 2025: Aaron Gunches (AZ), James Osgood (AL), Richard Djerf (AZ), and most recent­ly, Norman Grim (FL). Mr. Grim’s death war­rant was signed despite him not hav­ing assigned coun­sel at the time, his pre­vi­ous attor­ney hav­ing failed to prop­er­ly with­draw from his case after retir­ing. His new coun­sel was not appoint­ed until four days after Gov. DeSantis signed the exe­cu­tion war­rant, and Mr. Grim did not want them to file final appeals. Mr. Grim was a U.S. Navy vet­er­an whose child­hood was shaped by vio­lence and abuse, and whose young adult­hood was marked by men­tal ill­ness and sub­stance abuse. Mr. Grim was the fifth vet­er­an Florida exe­cut­ed in 2025, and since his exe­cu­tion, two oth­ers have been exe­cut­ed: Bryan Jennings and Richard ​“Malik” Randolph. 2025 is among the dead­liest year for vet­er­ans on death row, with nine vet­er­ans exe­cut­ed and one more sched­uled for execution. 

Research shows a strong cor­re­la­tion between vol­un­teer­ing for exe­cu­tion and men­tal health issues. A 2004 study by Cornell Law School Professor John Blume found that 88% of exe­cu­tion vol­un­teers between 1977 and 2003 strug­gled with men­tal ill­ness and/​or sub­stance abuse. In October 2024, DPI ana­lyzed vol­un­teers exe­cut­ed in the twen­ty years since Professor Blume’s study and found that among the first 165 exe­cu­tion vol­un­teers, 87% had men­tal ill­ness, sub­stance abuse, or both. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, who adamant­ly opposed the death penal­ty, once called the prac­tice of allow­ing men­tal­ly ill pris­on­ers to waive their appeals and be exe­cut­ed ​“noth­ing less than state-administered suicide.” 

Mr. Geralds was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death for the 1989 armed rob­bery, bur­glary, and mur­der of Tressa Pettibone in Panama City, Florida. He was ini­tial­ly sen­tenced to death in 1990, but the Florida Supreme Court vacat­ed his death sen­tence while main­tain­ing the con­vic­tion. He was sen­tenced to death again in 1993 and his sen­tence became final in 1996. In post-con­vic­tion appeals, Mr. Geralds alleged there was pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct before and dur­ing his tri­al, that he had inef­fec­tive assis­tance coun­sel, and he raised con­sti­tu­tion­al con­cerns about lethal injec­tion exe­cu­tions. All of these claims were denied, in addi­tion to fed­er­al habeas relief.

In 2025, 44 peo­ple have been exe­cut­ed across 11 states. Florida is respon­si­ble for 17 of these exe­cu­tions, or 38.6%. Three more exe­cu­tions are sched­uled in Florida and Tennessee in December 2025: Mark Geralds (12/​9), Harold Nichols (12/​11), and Frank Walls (12/​18).